The Mummy and The Wolfman

3. What does the Mummy and the Wolfman archetypes represent in terms of Eastern and Western religions? Explain it via Eros and Thanatos. For instance, how does Buddhism view death differently than Christianity?

The Mummy represents Eastern religious beliefs of being reincarnated. A reincarnation is when the body dies but the soul lives on through other living bodies that does not discriminate human or animal. Eastern religions try to preserve the body, or use the term “capsule of the soul”. We see that humanity through the past have become determined to preserve the bought for immortality as was seen in the idea of the mummy. Egyptians believed that by preserving the body, immortality could be obtained. The physical bodies were preserved so that it would stay intact when it moved unto the afterlife. However, we see that the Egyptians’ attempt of achieving immortality was never achieved. This continued to grow and evolve and did not stop our drive to defeat death and obtain immortality. We see in Western societies the desire to prolong one’s life through scientific and medical advances. This can all relate to a concept called Eros. Eros, which is the Greek god of love but also in a philosophical sense the love of wisdom, can be shortly defined as a desire for eternal life. This belief is related to the Egyptians belief of preserving life, instead of fully accepting and believing the death of a person and continuing on.

Rather than the belief of reincarnation, or eternal life, Western religions believe in something rather on different path. They have a belief that death is not the end, yet an extension into another life. This belief continues unto Thanatos, which is, in short, the idea that “death is the goal of life.” Western society tends not to believe in reincarnation but that the body and the soul die together and move on to the afterlife, Heaven or Hell. Instead of being re-born into another body like what the eastern religions believe in, the soul only goes around once; which means that any wrong doing is taken more seriously considering there is only one chance and one life to do things right. Just like how the Western religion is the opposite of Eastern beliefs, Thanatos may be referred to as the direct opposite of Eros. The very fact that Thanatos is the drive to die shows how incredibly different the cultures are in their beliefs. Where the Wolfman comes into play in the Western religion is this. Instead of trying to prolong life, Wolfman desire to actually die and go unto the afterlife. Rather than continue on with his immortality, he wishes to die, which correlates with Thanatos.

One example of different views between the eastern and western religion is the view of death between Buddhism and Christianity. As stated earlier, Buddhism, being an eastern religion, believes in being reincarnated into a new body after death, which continues on and portrays eternal life. On the other hand, Christianity views death as a gateway to heaven or hell, which is the afterlife. Whatever a person does on earth will lead them to an eternal life after death.

The two main ideas that these two concepts are trying to portray is the idea of life and death. As complete opposites, the wolfman wants death, while the mummy wants eternal life. What we need to truly learn and understand is that we can neither inhabit internal, eternal life like the mummy nor experience death like the wolfman. Instead we are caught in this middle ground, because the thought of an internal death is nonexistent. “To experience absolute death is entirely impossible, because experience belongs to the category of consciousness and existence.” (The Mummy vs. the Wolfman) We cannot experience death and see what it feels like consciously so it is impossible to know the verdict to the afterlife and what brings death.